PARADISE. Alasdair Gray
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speech.
Plato says after death all souls return
40 to stars they left at birth, meaning perhaps
natural forces shape our characters
to some extent. If so this partial truth
43 has misled worshippers of sun and moon,
Venus and Mars, who treat these stars as gods.
Your other doubt can do no mischief here
46 or lose the smallest droplet of my love.
That in your eyes justice seems cruelty
is not a sign of heresy, but faith.
By all who know that Jesus Christ is God, 49
doubts can be logically overcome.
Doubt should make faith more sure. The facts are these.
No force can make a flame burn upside down 52
or alter any wholly pure good will,
though force may twist them sideways or depress.
To show that torture could not change his mind 55
Saint Lawrence chose to roast upon a grill
and Mucius compelled his hand to burn.
Rare are heroic virtues of that kind. 58
When stronger forces make good nuns break vows
and leave their cloisters, they are not to blame,
yet must feel shame if the strong force withdraws 61
and she does not return because the rape
has cracked her spirit, left her in the wrong.
If that is understood your doubts are solved. 64
Here is a greater doubt you can’t resolve
without my aid. I told you Piccarda
is at the source of truth, so cannot lie. 67
She said that Constance, forced to be a queen
and breed an emperor, stayed nun at heart.
This means she did not linger in the wrong 70
by choosing to conform with what was forced.
Why was this so? Some sin against their will,
thinking to save themselves from something worse. 73
Alcmaeon slew his mother to escape
his father’s curse. Perverse good will enforced
76 is a Hell brew, but brother, know Constance
suffered by violence, but she forced none.
Only goodness came from her suffering,
79 so absolute Good Will took no offence
but the reverse, as Piccarda told you,
and also in these other words do I.”
82 Such were the ripples of that holy stream
whose source was the clear fountain of all truth.
They quenched and satisfied my thirsty soul.
85 I told her, “You who the First Lover loves,
whose speech raises my thinking nearer His
I now see intellects can never rest
88 until at last the One Truth shines on them
and further truth beyond cannot exist.
Doubt is a sturdy tree rooted in truth.
91 Nature demands we fly from branch to branch,
from height to height up to the topmost twig.
Only when that is reached can active mind
94 rest like contented bird inside its nest.
Were that not so then all desire is vain.
Lady, these facts lead to a new request.
97 Could all who fail to act as they have vowed
provide what God requires? Redeem themselves
through other acts of generosity?”
100 The eyes of Beatrice now sparkled bright
with the new interest that lifted me
so far above normality that I
103 could hardly bear the sight of so much love.
5: Free Will and Mercury
“Don’t wonder that in loving warmth I shine 1
more vividly than mortal eyes can bear.
The light of truth now growing in your mind
mirrors the highest good and so is bound 4
to kindle greater love in me, though since
you loved me as a child you’ve been beguiled
by many gleams of truth in lesser things. 7
You ask me now if souls can be redeemed
by good works when they break a holy vow.”
Having begun this chapter with the words 10
of Beatrice, here follows her reply,
her answer to the things I wished to know:
“The greatest gift God gave when He made men 13
was what is greatest glory in Himself:
free will, a function of intelligence.
Only humanity possesses that. 16
We are the only beasts who worship Him
with rights of sacrifice, with priests and nuns
who promise they will do God’s will alone 19
by sacrificing all their will to Him.
A given sacrifice that’s taken back
22 is ill-got gain, like any other gift
lawlessly repossessed. Can thieves use well
what they have stolen? They are robbers still.
25 Remember that chief point. Though Holy Church
sometimes releases priests and nuns from vows
which seems to contradict the truth I’ve told,
28 regard that as a mouthful of tough meat
to carefully chew over as I speak.
Think hard and you will come to understand
31 a sacrifice has two parts. There is first
promise of gift, and then the given thing.
A promise is not cancelled if not kept.
34 Only the keeping of one wipes it out,
but Jewish law said promises stayed good
if witnesses and parties to the deed
37 agreed upon a substituted gift
of greater value than the promised one.
Our church accepts this law of substitute,
40 but lets no single person use that law
till a just judge, weighing with equal scales,
can demonstrate no fraud or force prevails.
43 We Christians should be slow to swear an oath
and having sworn should strive to keep our word,